Verve Ventures
Verve Ventures is a Switzerland-based deep-tech venture capital firm, founded in 2010, that backs science startups across Europe in health and bio, computing, and energy and resources. It is not a water fund: its one tracked water bet is Puraffinity, a London materials company that strips PFAS from water. As of 2026, (don't) Waste Water rates its water commitment Occasional.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Verve Ventures started life in 2010 as investiere, an online platform that let private investors put money into Swiss startups one deal at a time, and grew over fifteen years into one of Europe's busier deep-tech investors, with more than 140 science and technology companies on its books. Co-founders Steffen Wagner and Lukas Weber run it out of Zürich around three themes, none of which is water: Health and Bio, Future of Computing, and Energy and Resources. Water turns up inside that last bucket, not as a strategy of its own.
Verve Ventures shows up in my water data for one company: Puraffinity. The London business is an Imperial College spinout that makes a bio-based adsorbent media to pull PFAS, the "forever chemicals" that don't break down in the environment, out of contaminated water, and it is built to retrofit into existing treatment kit rather than demand a new plant. Inside Verve it sits under Thomas Meier's Energy and Resources practice, the partner who leads the firm's resilience and resources investing. Puraffinity is the whole of Verve Ventures' water story.
Verve Ventures backed Puraffinity early, in 2019, and came back in for its 2023 Series A alongside Octopus Ventures, Kindred Capital and HG Ventures, but it has never led a water round. That is exactly what (don't) Waste Water's Occasional rating is meant to flag: one water company across two rounds, zero led, a generalist science fund that found a single materials bet it liked rather than a firm building a water portfolio. The conviction lives in one follow-on cheque, not in a thesis.
Verve Ventures matters for water less as a water investor than as a route into it. A deep-tech fund with a Zürich platform and a pan-European investor network is how a PFAS-removal spinout out of a London university lands cheques next to climate specialists like Octopus and corporate arms like HG Ventures. For now that stays one good bet under the resources theme, and this page tracks it as exactly that, not as a water fund it isn't.
Water Commitment Score
Compiled from official filings, third-party records, and direct intelligence from investors and founders, in Leviathan · recomputed monthly · as of Jun 2026.
How they invest
Portfolio · 1 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does Verve Ventures invest in?
- Verve Ventures invests in early-stage deep-tech and science startups across Europe, organised around three themes: health and bio, future of computing, and energy and resources. Verve Ventures is a generalist deep-tech fund, not a water specialist; within water, its only tracked investment is Puraffinity, a PFAS-removal materials company.
- Is Verve Ventures a water fund?
- No. Verve Ventures is a Switzerland-based deep-tech venture capital firm, and (don't) Waste Water rates its water commitment Occasional. Verve Ventures has backed a single tracked water company, Puraffinity, but water is not a stated thesis; the firm invests broadly across science and technology, with water sitting inside its energy and resources theme.
- What water companies has Verve Ventures backed?
- Verve Ventures has backed one tracked water company, Puraffinity. Based in London and spun out of Imperial College, Puraffinity makes a bio-based adsorbent media that removes PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals, from contaminated water. Verve Ventures first invested in 2019 and followed in Puraffinity's 2023 Series A, without leading the round.
- Who runs Verve Ventures?
- Verve Ventures was co-founded in 2010 by Steffen Wagner and Lukas Weber, who lead the firm as CEO and Co-CEO from Zürich. Its water-relevant investing sits with Thomas Meier, the partner who heads the energy and resources practice that Verve Ventures' one water company, Puraffinity, falls under.
- Where is Verve Ventures based?
- Verve Ventures is headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland, and invests across Europe. Founded in 2010 as the investiere co-investment platform and rebranded to Verve Ventures in 2021, the firm now backs more than 140 deep-tech and science startups from seed through Series B and beyond.